The Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) is developing a Long Term Evolution (LTE) carrier using a physical layer based on globally applicable evolved universal terrestrial radio access (E-UTRA). A mobile terminal or station (MS), also referred to as User equipment (UE), may use a cell-specific reference signal as a metric to determine if a radio link with the base station is in synchronization or out of synchronization by determining whether reliable transmission of a physical downlink control channel (PDCCH) code word with specific formats can be supported over the link.
The various aspects, features and advantages of the disclosure will become more fully apparent to those having ordinary skill in the art upon careful consideration of the following Detailed Description thereof with the accompanying drawings described below. The drawings may have been simplified for clarity and are not necessarily drawn to scale.